The Role of Educational Films in Developing Some Social Skills for Individuals with Intellectual Disability in Early Childhood

Abstract

The current research aims to provide mentally retarded children who are capable of learning in the primary educational classes of early childhood with some social skills represented in social interaction, cooperation, participation in activities, the formation of friendships, and following rules and instructions using educational films represented by educational animated films and video models that include a group of social skills. Given the nature of the study, a one-group quasi-experimental design was used. The researcher relied on a set of tools, including the Social Skills Scale “prepared by the researcher,” the Stanford Binet Intelligence Test, Figure 5 (prepared by Safwat Farag), and the Economic and Social Level Scale (prepared by Abdel Aziz Al-Fakhs). The researcher prepared a program based on educational films (educational animation and educational video modeling) to develop some social skills. The study was conducted on an experimental sample of 11 mentally retarded children in early childhood in the primary educational grades of Al-Damj Primary School 32 in Hafr Al-Batin Governorate. The results of the current research resulted in the presence of statistically significant differences between the average scores of the experimental group in the pre- and post-measurements in favor of the post-measurement of the social skills scale and their total sum. At the same time, there are no statistically significant differences between the average scores of the experimental group in the post- and post-measurements of the social skills scale and their total sum, which It indicates the effectiveness of the program based on educational films in developing some social skills for mentally retarded people who are capable of learning in early childhood, as shown by the post-measurement of the experimental group, in addition to the continued positive effect on the experimental group, as demonstrated by the follow-up measurement of the children in the research sample, and shown by the results of its hypotheses. In light of these results, a set of recommendations were presented, the first of which was the necessity of intellectual education curricula containing diverse and attractive educational films to develop the skills of mentally retarded people who are amenable to learning in the early childhood stage, especially social skills.